The Ones You Take With You

You never know when the next time is the last time

Dear friends,

Have you ever used Facebook Marketplace? What a wild, wild place. I’ve been completely absent from Facebook for the past eight years, and so had no idea that hidden beneath the photos of kids, pets, and vacations lurks a giant flea market where you can buy, sell, and barter anything you imagine (and more … for less money than you would have thought). I posted an old, broken typewriter and immediately received hundreds of messages from nearby residents … including, randomly, someone I met at a conference over a decade ago.

It took me a while to get the hang of filtering through the hundreds of messages, but Facebook’s AI-generated responses made it easier, and quickly I became addicted to selling my every possession. Bluetooth headphones for $40. A printer for $20. An Apple Thunderbolt monitor for $75.¹ You know that feeling when you squeeze out a really satisfying blackhead from your back, and then you keep searching for more? That was the kind of unquenchable pleasure I got from selling old shit on Facebook Marketplace. I wanted it all gone.

Say Goodbye

It has been a month of goodbyes: to my colleagues, friends, and local family. I said goodbye to my therapist and gym. I said goodbye to my barber, barista, and baker. I got emotional as I rode my bike along my favorite roads while listening to my favorite playlists … the closest thing I have to church.

Saying goodbye to my printer was a breeze. But it was hard saying goodbye to Raúl, who for years made my perfect 6 a.m. cappuccino and breakfast sandwich while I read the morning papers and watched the sun rise over the Berkeley hills.

Despite my ambition to adopt a counter-culture of commitment, my peripatetic life thus far is spread across a dozen cities, 20 jobs, hundreds of conferences, and thousands of contacts in my address book. If that comes off as a humble-brag, I promise you that it does not reflect the life I want.

I want neighbors who know my name and stop to talk. I want to consistently contribute to communities of common interests: trail running, live music, swimming, backpacking, and cycling. I want to focus 90% of my social energy on a handful of friends who can depend on me, know everything about me, and want the best for me.

I feel the ironic tension of leaving behind our communities here in the Bay Area with the hope that we’re entering a slower, less transient, and smaller-scale phase of life in Oaxaca.

“Oh we'll know each other forever, Bix says. The days of losing touch are almost gone.”

Two of the best novels I read this year were written by the same author, Jennifer Egan. In 2011, she published A Visit From the Goon Squad about a group of Gen X, punk rock teenagers in 1980s San Francisco who went to New York City for college in the 1990s. Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character, and they bounce back and forth from 1980s San Francisco to 1990s New York.

It took her 11 years to publish the sequel, The Candy House, which is mostly set in New York and LA in the 2030s — and features most of the same characters, except that now they are in their 50s and have children the same age as the protagonists we originally met. Futuristic brain scans offer us flashbacks to the youth of their aging, hippie parents in 1960s Northern California. The result is a brilliant, complicated collage of how each generation repeats the mistakes of its parents and tries to find meaning amidst the accelerating changes in attitudes, fashions, and technology.

In the first book, A Visit from the Goon Squad, there is a minor character with just a few lines of dialogue who becomes the most important character in The Candy House. It’s 1992, Bill Clinton was improbably elected president, and some of the characters are now NYU students studying various social sciences. Except for Bix. He’s the one nerd studying computer science who spends insomniac nights writing code and hanging out on bulletin boards before any of his friends even had email addresses. One drunken night, walking from the East Village toward the Williamsburg Bridge, he tells his friends how everything will change in the future. They are young and buzzed and feel an immense affection for one another. After a moment of silence staring out at the East River, someone says: “Let’s remember this day, even when we don’t know each other anymore.” And Bix replies: “Oh we'll know each other forever. The days of losing touch are almost gone.”

In my late teens and early 20s, saying goodbye meant saying goodbye. There was closure. I had no idea that two decades later, with a simple search on Google, I could get an immediate update about their lives. I could drop them a note and attempt to rekindle a friendship, though in practice I almost never do. There are no more real goodbyes; it’s too easy to keep in touch. But will we? So rarely do we know when the next time we see someone is the last time we see someone.

Bicycle Diaries

I try not to be evangelical about cycling, but often I fail. Cycling has given me so much over the past six years:

• A handful of intimate friendships

• A larger community of hundreds of cyclists I see all over town — at races, in bakeries, waving at each other as we pass on the road.

• Endorphins, adrenaline, and what one fellow cyclist described as “that childlike sense of weeeeeeeee!”

• The best health and fitness of my life

• The pleasure of getting slightly better at something over time

Cycling has become my broken-record answer to every complaint. You’re single and want to meet someone? Cycling. You’d like to lose weight? Cycling. You want to explore and discover more of your city? Cycling. You want to build healthy habits with positive people? Cycling. You appreciate postcard views of sunrises and sunsets? Cycling. You’re tired of people staring at you (or staring at yourself) in the gym? Cycling.

I fully recognize the high barrier to entry. I know how dumb we look click-clacking around cafes in our reverse high heels with genitalia poking through spandex and boogers dripping down our noses. But it’s precisely the transcendence of vanity demanded from cycling that makes for a vulnerable and intimate bond with the members of your peloton. I know that it’s not for everyone, but I wish that more people would give it a try.²

I chose last Sunday to organize a farewell ride with some of the local cyclists who introduced me to the sport and community back in 2017/18. The forecast said there was a slight chance of passing light showers in the morning, and then the day would soon clear up. If only. All day long we battled relentless slanting rain. And yet my friends showed up for one last epic adventure on some of my favorite roads where we’ve shared dozens of memories and meaningful conversations together over the years. It wasn’t an easy day, but a memorable one.

Not the best group photo, but you can only ask so much of a passing stranger standing in the rain.

Well, it’s time to pack the last of the boxes and take the rest to Goodwill. If all goes to plan, Iris and I hit the road next Monday. If you have any good road trip playlists, please send them our way.

Have a great week,

David

1. I couldn’t believe how insanely cheap everything is on Facebook Marketplace. Why would anyone ever buy anything new?

2. At a time of rising loneliness, obesity, and the need to cut carbon emissions, launching a business to bring people together to have good times on bikes strikes me as a modestly noble goal.